Comparison of the Water Absorbing Bead Ingestion Results in Turkey and World Literature

INTRODUCTION: Water absorbing beads (WAB), also known as water monkey in Turkey, are popular foreign bodies and swell when they come in contact with water or water containing solutions. If ingested, they have potential for causing intestinal obstruction. The aim of the present study is to compare the results and the differences of WAB ingestion in Turkey and world literature. METHODS: In the most used medical databases, patients who had surgery due to ingestion WAB were analysed according to author, year, country, age, sex, time elapsed from onset of symptoms to admission to hospital, diagnosis and treatment applied.RESULTS: The first case of intestinal obstruction operation due to WAB ingestion in the world was published in 2011 and 24 cases are reported so far. All of the cases ages were 2 years old or under and they were operated due to small bowel obstruction. In Turkey, studies related to WAB ingestion are very few and there is no reported case that went under operation yet. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The reasons for the lack of patients who underwent surgery due to WAB ingestion in Turkey are; nationwide sales of WAB are limited, precautions are taken early on and WAB are used mostly outside of houses thus the risk group age cannot reach WAB. Therefore, the number of studies are few or cases are not being reported.